Broad-Spectrum Assassin

Memory 26: Our Final Form

The darkness stuck to my feet like a Spyder's web. I took a step forward, but it only led to more goopy darkness. My memories fell from their place above me and were consumed by the black muck. I tried to pull them out but the darkness took form around them. The new shape points at me.

I nearly forgot I had killed him.

"Let me out of here!" BladEagle's face emerges from the goop and his arms turn into swords.

I try to shield myself from his knives but they cut my arms.

A hand grabs my foot. Then another grabs my leg.

Swallowed up by my own darkness. I deserve it. She's gone because of me. I...can't even remember her name.

The darkness on my body takes form as the love of my life and kicks away the hands grabbing me. "This is your mind. Take command!" She kicks BladEagle aside with her metal legs.

She's right. I'm in control.

I place the muck to my forehead.

This is me. Everything here is me.

I throw my hands to the side, willing the black goop to shoot up like geysers.

My enemies shape it into projectiles but I open my arms and heart, fusing with the projectiles they attack me with.

I direct my hand at them one at a time and send out a black arrow.

The arrow pieces through them. The faceless students scream in agony, making the realm quake. Eyes and mouths appear on them as they truly die, returning with it all their memories.

To emerge as a RiftRipper I must kill them all a second time.

I will the muck on WarWolf to jut out, piercing more enemies that crawl towards me.

So many lives sacrificed to create me. If I lost now, I'd be disappointing all of them.

I turn the geysers into spikes, killing over fifty students at a single moment.

The simultaneous screams crack the realm, distorting space.

The once distant enemies crawl through the distortions, arriving instantly and clawing at me with their black fingernails.

Without even thinking, I jump from one to the next, hugging them before pooling the darkness around them into a knife and piercing their heart.

"Don't let them make you a monster," says CamOctopus with a look of desperation.

"It's the only way to survive in this world of insanity." I pull the blade out before I'm lifted off my feet.

A massive black golem has me in its palm. The form it takes is undeniably familiar to me.

Mother.

I scream as my body is being crushed.

Mother wouldn't hurt me. It's guilt. The darkness is misery and guilt.

I pool the darkness beneath me into a thin blade, focusing it as it elongates. I slice the arm off and collapse toward a special distortion.

WarWolf grabs my hand and pulls me up. "We're shaped by your dark feelings. Your mother is in there. I'm only able to help because I just arrived here."

I look out at the dark golem. "It's mine to bear! Not yours!"

The darkness explodes and my mother lands.

I approach her as I pull the darkness off her with my willpower. "I don't know if I can be that great assassin you always wanted, mom." I crouch down to look at her and wipe the muck off her eyes.